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Dessert

Everlasting, or Solid, Syllabubs

A thick lemon custard made with cream, sugar, raisin wine, and lemon zest, set by beating and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Everlasting, or Solid, Syllabubs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syllabub

  1. In a deep pan, mix the cream, sugar, raisin wine, lemon peel, and lemon juice.

  2. Beat the mixture for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain it through a sieve lined with thin muslin and let it sit until the next day.

Serve and keep

  1. Serve in glasses.

  2. Keep in a cool place for up to 10 days.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Thick raw cream
Provides the rich body and creamy texture that the whipped mixture holds.
Refined sugar
Sweetens the syllabub and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Raisin wine
Adds wine flavour and liquid that helps thin the cream mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that gives a sharp, bright flavour to the cream.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture for 30 minutes. Beating incorporates air and thickens the cream as it is whipped. Too little beating leaves the mixture thin and unset, while overbeating can turn cream grainy, so the texture should be watched closely.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, wine, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, wine, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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